How To Start Your Own Business (Before The Year Ends)

Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. So what's new in the world of entrepreneurship? You've been sitting on a business idea for months, maybe even years, but still have not started. Or you've started, but landing clients feels impossible. And you've watched the tutorials, you've taken notes, but deep down you still don't know what is it that you'll be selling, how to start a business, or who would actually pay for that service or for that offer. And every day you wait, the fear builds. What if you try and it still does not work? I get it. I waited too before building 7 businesses, including an 8-figure consulting firm that later I later sold to Dentsu, the global media giant. I was laid off, broke, and scared with a young family counting on me. And after that initial struggle for several weeks, I figured that waiting did not help the fear go away. Taking one tiny step did help the fear go away. And then after that first tiny step, one more shaky step and another shaky step till you start to see how this entrepreneurship thing works. Because see, if you don't start, you know, not starting isn't neutral. It does cost you Confidence, it costs you time, and it does cost you real opportunities. And you don't have to quit your job, but you do have to stop kidding yourself that you'll start later. So in this episode, I'll walk you through a dead simple path from raw idea to total clarity and then to paying. clients. This way you can finally move, you can start building real momentum and stop wondering if this dream dies before it even begins. Now, before we jump in, a few housekeeping items. Well, first, making sure the technology is working fine, which seems to be. Um, whether you're watching or listening live or tuning in later, I'd love to hear from you. Just let me know about your challenges, the questions, the ideas you're trying to vet. Why is it that you're not starting? Maybe some fears that you are dealing with. I totally get it. And if this is something that you don't want to leave a comment for publicly, you can email me at feras@startupwithferas.com, and I review all these emails personally, and I keep it all confidential. So do let me know if you have a question, a struggle, something that just you're stuck and you're not sure where to go, I'm here to help. And I'd love to hear about your wins, small or big. Let me know how you're facing those challenges, how you're overcoming those challenges, what worked for you. And if you're okay with it, I'd love to share with the community because we are learning from each other. Yes, I've built businesses. Yes, We got some of those businesses 7 figures and 1 to 8 figures and sold it and all that good stuff. But trust me, if we're not learning, um, we become stale and we don't make progress, and it just doesn't help. So share with me again questions, comments, issues, challenges, and also your wins. I'd love to hear from you. The other thing is that every other Thursday at 1 PM Pacific 4 Eastern, we have this live stream where we cover a— I cover a specific topic related to entrepreneurship and then answer questions that I get from the community. So, um, subscribe to the channel on YouTube so you don't miss out on upcoming episodes, and then whichever platform you're on, you can connect with me there. And again, let me know what challenges you're facing so that I can address this in the content that I produce. Good stuff. So let's jump right in, and I do have slides to share with you. So let's see, there is— hmm, it looks like there's an issue on YouTube, so we have to just give me one second. Give me one second here, and then we'll re-add YouTube. Sorry about this. We should be good to go here right now. All right, we are back. We're back on YouTube. Let me just double-check here. Uh, all right, for those of you who are just joining again, we had a technical glitch. We are talking about helping you start a business in the next couple months. I know you might have been thinking about an idea for months or maybe for years. You've been wanting to start. You've had some concerns, some fears. All of this is very legitimate. We all go through this. I went through it before I started and built and sold many companies. I had the same fears that many of you experience today— the fear of failure, the fear of Sometimes success. Oh my God, what do I do if I get a big client? The fear of, you know, the reputation. What will people say about me if I fail? All of those are real, real fears. And if those are holding you back from starting, that's what we want to address today. Not specifically how to challenge, how to overcome every fear. I have a video coming up on that. But in terms of the how-to, how to take this dream that you have, how to turn it into reality. I've been wanting to start a business. I've been wanting to have my own business, to build my own amazing culture, to, to tap into this, um, untapped potential in terms of income and, and take care of myself and my family. All of that can be, can be done through having your own business now. This is not the channel where I promise you that you'll make $10,000 a month on your first month, or you'll have this amazing success overnight. This is not the channel for that. But I do share with you a map, a roadmap, a, a framework that had worked for me and, and for over 150 entrepreneurs that I've helped over the years, so that you can have something to work with to get to your destination, as I always say, with less bruises and with less gray hair. So my job here is to show you a roadmap, a framework for you to— tools, not specifically rules, but tools for you to use and to get that idea from just from a dream you have into something that is tangible, something that is concrete, something that you can do one step at a time if you're not ready to jump right in. You can definitely transition in entrepreneurship. You don't have to bid the whole farm, leave your job right away, and overnight jump into this entrepreneurship thing. No, you can do things that gradually— actually, my recommendation in most cases is that build a lot of things that you want to do for that business while you have an income, while you have benefits, while you have insurance. and then, and then do a lot of the back-end office, a lot of the research, a lot of the planning while you— things are stable. And then, and then you can take that leap at the right time. Sometimes we are forced into entrepreneurship. If you're laid off and you cannot secure a job, you might have to go. You know, you don't have a whole lot of time to, um, maybe to, to, um, to do things while you have an income because you might have a severance package and that severance package is about to, you know, you've extended the life of that package and now it's getting close, um, for you to, um, to tap into your savings and you don't want to do that and you want to start a business. So sometimes we're forced into entrepreneurship, sometimes we have time. Obviously the tax that we pay, nothing comes for free, is that if you are working full-time and you plan, you're planning your business on the side. It does take time during the evenings, on the weekend, for you to build this dream thing that you've been wanting to do for a long time. So again, sorry for this little disruption with the technology at the beginning, uh, but we are live now across all the channels, um, and we are going to jump right into it. And what I was about to do is to share my slides, and let's do that right now. So So the first thing I want to talk about before we get into the tactic, the tactics and the strategies, I do want to spend a little bit of time on mindset. Mindset is foundational, and I don't think we speak about it enough. I know there's a lot of it on YouTube, on social media, but it is a thing. And of course it's a thing if I can show it on my screen. There you go. Good. So in my course, Zero to Revenue: Entrepreneurship Essentials, the first module I had after the introduction was on mindset. And it's interesting. I think it was Reid Hoffman who said, the co-founder of LinkedIn, he said, back in when we all lived in caves in the old days, We were all entrepreneurs. We had to do things to survive. And then later, over our evolution, and I guess the more sophisticated we got and our systems around us, and we got used to maybe a 9-to-5 rhythm, we— okay, we work, we go, we show up, and then we have a paycheck, and then we have the benefits. And things seem to be in order till they're not. There are a lot of waves of layoffs going on. So even what appears to be a stable environment that we're used to and we seem comfortable and confident that, hey, we've got the benefits and the income, you never know when a corporation decides to lay off or basically just terminate a whole section, a whole, a whole sector, a whole, um, a product or a line of service. So, so, so the, the, the— there's a balance of having, um, this concept of stability and, um, I'm comfortable and I have income, and also taking that risk of starting. And sometimes we overthink it. Sometimes we, you know, we look at every possible scenario that could go wrong, and that prevents us from taking that first step. Initially, I do want you to do some planning, and I'll talk about that. So I don't want you to confuse planning with lack of action. I want to do some business planning, and we have a video on this, and we have some templates and worksheets on that. I do want you to do some market research. We'll talk about vetting your idea in a little bit. But I don't want you to confuse planning with actually taking action. So while you put together your business plan, I want you to be out there talking to potential customers. While you are doing your financial planning, what the business will bring in, I want you to look at your own expenses and see if you can potentially extend that runway that you have, maybe delay that vacation, that overseas vacation, and now plan something local. Mm-hmm. Maybe buying the new car, wait on that. Maybe there's some other expenses that I can cut just so that I have a solid financial, a solid financial base or a runway that will give me a bit longer time before maybe I get to my revenue. So I do want you to go through that, that business planning process, but I don't want you to be stuck in it and then overthink every— overthink it and then think of Every possible bad scenario that could happen, and I don't I don't blame you if you're stuck in that phase because we hear that the statistics depending on what site you look at failure in in businesses in in startups in entrepreneurship is anywhere from 95% to 90% to 50%. Again, depending on what what stat you look at and what the way they're looking at the data, so the failure rate is high and. It could be discouraging, but it's more of a— I like to think about it more of a, okay, it's the reality. Success is not guaranteed, but we're not— it's not doom and gloom. I can, if I do the proper planning, if I do follow the steps, if I do my research, every step I take on this roadmap, I'm minimizing or I'm reducing the chances of failure. So, so you have to, you have to do some planning, but I don't want you to be stuck in planning like I was when we first decided to start a business, my, my business partner and I. But we really never started till we actually knocked on doors and asked people if they wanted to buy what we were offering. It was websites at the time, back in 2003. So, so yes, we were hiding behind planning. We were overthinking everything— pricing, How we package things, what do we sell? Let's look at the 5-year, you know, sales and growth planning. Like, who needs a 5-year plan if you don't have a customer yet? So there's that balance. Don't overthink it. That's one thing to keep in mind. The next thing is traits that every founder must master. And this is also tricky because it has to do with the mindset. And there are many, many traits that founders must master. But in general, again, let me— those of you who are joining a bit later, I know we had a technical glitch at the beginning. So if you have any questions about starting a business over the next couple months, whether it's about vetting the idea, whether about just the fear of starting, whether it's the challenges that you're having today. You don't have maybe time, or, or you're not sure what to do as your next step. Feel free to add your comment. Feel free to add your question here in the chat on whichever platform you get. I should be able to get them, get all of them here into this one, uh, one system that we use. We use StreamYard. But I'd love to hear from you about the challenges that you are facing today that are preventing you from starting that business. So back to the traits that every founder must master. So this is a loaded sentence in a way, because by default, you're just starting your business, or you're about to start. You don't have all the skills that you need. You might have the technical skills. You want to do IT consulting, you have 10 years of experience in IT, or you want to do something to do with AI, maybe you want to go and help companies streamline their— the way they put some guidelines around AI utilization, about, um, how, uh, rules and guidelines for their, for the employees, and, and maybe help them, help them build custom GPTs for, for their purposes. Maybe that's the service that you want to offer. That's great. You have, you have some technical experience, some experience and some technical expertise in that, in your field. So that you must— you, you may be very proficient at it. You You might have mastered that domain. That's great. But by default, if you're starting something new, whatever it is, business or otherwise, you're not a master at it yet. Just like when I stepped on that martial arts mat, on the Aikido mat, although I've had some martial arts experience in other arts, but I knew nothing about Aikido. I didn't know how to roll, how to do a back roll, how to take a fall. So I was a beginner in that sense. And I had to learn everything from the ground up. Same thing in business. So when I say you must master over time, initially you want to get comfortable with some of these traits. You want to start building these muscles. So one of the muscles in terms of one of the traits here is getting things done. You must have a bias toward action. That's really important. Entrepreneurship is about, about that, that hustle mindset. It's about, I can, I can do it. It's, it's, it's like, let me, let me talk to someone who has done it and learn something from them. Let me go to, to this event that is happening locally at a local conference and meetup or a chamber of commerce and, and see how other people are done it. I'm not going to delay that Wednesday night meeting because I want to, I want to watch the show or I have something I can, I can do on the weekend. No, get things done, meaning If it's a plan that you want to do, a draft of your business plan, finish it by this weekend. If you want to speak with people that potentially would give you guidance about your business, put a timeframe and do it and reach out and send that email and make that phone call. So getting things done is a really, really, really important trait that you must have. And I— we won't have time. I can dedicate a whole episode on the traits for entrepreneurship, but the things that The point I want to highlight here—I'll bring another example, another trait—but I want to highlight is you must master. You'll master over time, but you must build the muscle to get there. For example, the the the resilience. Basically, we get back up after we fall. If everything in your life has been very mundane, I would say, or maybe you haven't had a whole lot of. A lot of things that are maybe risky, or you haven't been taking any, any kind of risk, even small risk, maybe, maybe before, again, you quit your job, you, you send your resignation letter and you say, I'm starting, I'm taking on this entrepreneurship thing tomorrow. Don't do that if you haven't taken big risks in your life and you haven't developed a, a muscle on, on, on calculated risk-taking. I want you to start doing things in, in maybe in a hobby or something a bit outside of your comfort zone. Maybe, maybe you, you go, and if you're the introvert type and, and it's really challenging for you to speak with people, maybe you do force yourself to go to a networking event, right? So, so you'll, you'll get maybe some— not everybody's going to be friendly to you Okay, so that's okay. Maybe, maybe you weren't— did not approach them right. Maybe they're— maybe they were— they happen to be a jerk. You know, most people are nice when you go to networking event. They're there to network, right? So if you, you went the first time and you had a bad experience in networking, resilience is that you don't quit. Okay, what could I have done better? Always, always see what is it that we can do better and And then what's the next event that I can go and attend and prepare better for? Right? And there are tons of videos on how to do networking events. I have in the course, free course available on YouTube now called Zero to Revenue Entrepreneurship Essentials. There's a module on networking, you know, in a local event in your industry or just local Chamber of Commerce event or somewhere where your potential buyers are, potential customers are, and people who potentially can connect you to your potential clients. So the point here is that you need to develop a number of skills, discipline, getting things done, this bias toward action, all of that is important, being comfortable with uncertainty, that is the nature of the beast. And as, as I said earlier, even if you have a full-time job and things look rosy, you never know when the Layoff Axe will drop. I mean, I was just reading the news this morning, the headlines. Bunch of companies are laying off. I think Amazon said 14,000. I read another headline, it says 30,000 people. Meta announced Paramount in different industries, right? There's the AI disruption. Of course, there are always things that are taking place, whether the economy is hit hard and companies need to have some cost-saving measures, or sometimes because of technology disruption, companies have to restructure. So even though you might think there's some certainty and some stability in a job, trust me, it's maybe a perceived certainty or a perceived Stability. So, so getting comfortable with uncertainty is another trait that you must master. But the point I want to highlight here is that I want you to start one step at a time. Mastery will take time. Mastering how, how you deal with the rejections when people say, I don't want to buy from you, or they don't— they just ghost you. It's hard. Even after all these years, when, when people don't get back to me, Yeah. It's hard, you know, or maybe I lose a deal. I send a proposal. It doesn't. I don't get. I don't get that that business. Yeah, it doesn't feel great. But you know what? Okay, I did my best. Let's do a quick analysis. What did I have? What could I have done better? Was it pricing? Whether delivery time? Whether scoping? Whether just I didn't read the customer well enough? Whatever that whatever the case might be, we learn from these challenges, from these failures. And then we go back at it again. So that is on mindset. And then the last point here I want to highlight on mindset is this Black Belt principle that we have is I want you to iterate and iterate fast and iterate on the go. So we make progress through consistent practice, not through Perfect plans. I always tell folks in martial arts, new some new students who come in youth and adults, you can't learn martial arts on YouTube. You can, you know, it's amazing stuff that you see, amazing talent, but you have to step on the mat. You have to feel that it's clunky. No, it's I don't know how to how to talk to people. I don't know how to put a business plan together. I don't know how to price. Of course, you haven't done it before. You might've done some certain elements of it in a previous job, but it is totally okay if you're finding yourself stuck or you don't know what to do next, but because progress is about taking tiny steps, one step at a time, shaking maybe, that's okay. Remember the first time you rode the bike, right? The first time you put your hands on the steering wheel behind a car, you know, driving a car, The same, the same thing in business. We just have to learn it one step at a time. All right, so that is on the mindset. Next, we'll go into some very specific tactical things that I want you to do. So the one from idea to validation, as they say, ideas are a dime a dozen. So, so, I mean You have to execute, which is the first trait I talked about, getting things done, have that bias toward action. What I want you to think about is brainstorm ideas. Have a spreadsheet, open a Google Sheet, and as you go through throughout the day, you see a problem no one is fixing, that's a business idea. Now whether people will pay for it or not, that's a different discussion. But start jotting down ideas, things that you like, you have maybe not, not just you have passion for. But I was listening to a book on TED, um, what was his name? Chris Anderson. He runs TED. And, and he's saying when he, in his entrepreneur— entrepreneurial journey, he always looked for passion. Not necessarily passion, the passion he had, but what people have passion for. Because if there's passion for something, people are willing to invest in it, pay you money, obviously, to help them achieve, get, go get, get that passion they're looking for. So, so I want you to jot down these ideas, especially as they relate to things you have skills for. So, and that's a question like, what if I don't have skills for something that I'm passionate about? Passion by itself is not sufficient. Passion, we have another Black Belt principle, passion is optional, skills and sacrifice are not. So either look for skills that you have that can solve a problem, or when you're looking for these ideas, oh, I can do this, I see a potential for this, But I don't have the skills for it. So, so you can build up skills. So again, if you go this route that I mentioned earlier where you have a full-time job, you have an income, things are somewhat stable, you have some time to put behind this business idea, then the first thing I would think about, I would do, is identify, okay, what are these ideas that, that are running through my head? What are the problems I'm seeing that people are not Are not are not being solved, or maybe solved inefficiently. The one thing also I want you to think about as you're vetting the idea: think of you don't want to be a generalist. You want to focus on a niche, niching down. Basically, I want to be an accountant. Okay. Well, there are gazillion accountants, literally tens of thousands of of of of CPAs. I was on the CPA on the Cal CPA website the other day. I forgot, tens of thousands of CPAs just in California. So maybe you want to be an accountant for startups. You want to be an accountant for people who do work overseas because you've done some of that work in your previous— in a previous job. Or maybe you want to be an accountant, you want to be focused on a CPA for consumers, for individuals and families, or you want to work with companies, with businesses. So start to niche down. On, on, on a segment of, of the clients. Think of, we have the world, we have potential buyers, and then we have our niche. Over time you can expand, you can go beyond your niche and do all those great things, but initially I don't want you to be too niched. Like, you want to focus on people who, um, solopreneurs in a specific city, in a specific sector in a specific time zone, you know, that just is just— you're just going down too far. So, so again, you'll learn this through when you talk to people, through your network, through your— the meetings you're going to, the outreach you're doing. But think of a segment of the population where your skills can really help you solve their problems. Another thing to think about as you are vetting the idea is I had a boss who used to say boring is bountiful. So just because something is boring, it doesn't mean there's no money behind it. Because a lot of times, a lot of times consultants especially, they want to work on the latest cutting-edge whatever product. Maybe they want to do training or implementation on the latest X system, but nobody wants to write documentation. For maybe, um, for, for those products. So maybe you focus on writing user— if you're a writer and you want to, you want to have, um, offer technical writing services. This might be boring to many people, but, but if you have a skill and you like it, that might be something where there's a lot of, a lot of revenue. So, so just because something is not flashy doesn't mean that there's no money behind it. Another thing to think about is Maybe there's a market where maybe you live in a big city, but there's a neighboring city where they don't have competitors if you offer something local, or maybe you have connections in another market. I remember when we started our business in Dubai, I had an ex-colleague from my very first business at Home Shopping Network. He was living in that region, working in that region, and then came back to the States when his kids got older, and he said, hey, I have a network there. I know it's an emerging market and there's a need for what you offer. We were offering analytics services at the time here. So through this connection, we met some local partners in Dubai and started that business. It's thriving, it's a 7-figure business now. So look for markets where potentially, if your market is very crowded in what for what you offer, maybe you can go into other markets, including international markets. So that is in terms of vetting the idea. Just because it's an idea that you have, it doesn't have to be— it doesn't mean that it's there. There's this validation process that you go through, that I want you to go through, and one tip, one very practical tip, one thing I want you to do is to use that 10+5 worksheet that I have to vet this idea, and I'm going to walk you through it. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but I want you to— you can download a copy. I'll leave a copy, a link to the— to it in the description. But basically, let me share my screen here. Give me one second. I want you to speak with 10 people who are potential clients and then also research 5 competitors. So if you look at the screen here, for those of you who are watching— okay, I thought I had it, but I did not have it. Share my screen right here. Make it a bit larger here. Yeah, so, so basically I have this spreadsheet. You can make a copy and, um, and I'll put the link on the screen so that you have it. Yeah, it's right there, bbsu.net/vetting. V-E-T-T-I-N-G. And what we have here basically is I want you to list 10 people, um, and, and their association, their friends, their ex-colleagues, suppliers, people, people in your network. Do they have what, what a need for what you sell? And ask them, do they hire, do they contract, do they do it in-house? And then ask them as well, what is it that other consultants miss when they offer the service, right? So, so you're trying to find gaps, either gaps in the market, something that people are looking for and that no one is selling, or someone is providing that service but maybe it's too expensive, they're charging too much, it's very expensive, or they're not delivering on time, or they're not responsive, or the quality is poor. Any one of those could be your differentiator, right? So when you ask 10 people about their experience with that service that you're offering, you'll, you'll, you'll learn a lot on what the needs are from these people. And then, and I have in that same spreadsheet here, I have this blank one for you to fill out for your own business. And then I actually have a sample of a field. I think this was for IT consulting. So, so again, you can see the data. You know, I spoke with Roger and Mary and Susan and Omar and, and Robert and Philip and, and see what they told me, um, how they— what kind of need they have, um, if they hired in-house or they hired a full-time person or a contractor, and, and then what, what is it that the contractors miss. So that's one thing. The other thing is I want you to research 5 competitors. The same thing here, put the competitors down. Don't look for someone who's been doing this for 20 years. Look for someone maybe a small— closer to your size, maybe someone who's been around for a couple years. And then, and then see what they have on their website, reviews about them. If you can get your hand on, on a proposal that they've submitted, or maybe If you could find someone who had done some work with them and understand just the experience people had with this vendor or these vendors. And if you don't have access to any of this stuff, at least gather what you find online about their services, who they offer, their pricing, the way they package things. Do they have different pricing tiers? Do they, do they do things You can tell from their copy, from their content, what is it that they're focusing on? Is it level of service? Again, is it pricing? Those sort of things. And all of that, the combination of, of the competitor research and then talking to these 10 people will give you enough information that you can put together, sit down, and then say, okay, here's, here's the— here are the gaps, here's what I can offer. You have my skills on one hand, and then I have the market need and the issues that people are facing. That will help you package your offer. Of course, if you did a good job in documenting all this, you can put it in ChatGPT or Gemini, your favorite AI, and have it help you with this process. Now, one could say, well, what if we just— I just— why would I do this whole effort and I can just put a very detailed prompt and ask AI to give me this, this answer about packaging my offer. Well, yes, you will get an answer from AI. It might be a good answer, but talking to people as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, and as, as a society, as we rely, rely more and more on tech and on AI There's no replacement for this one-on-one interaction with people. So, so I want you to talk to people for 2 purposes. One is obviously, obviously to learn more about their needs per this sheet that I just shared with you. And the second is I want you to also practice talking to strangers about your business. So So it's a byproduct of this research. So yes, you can get a lot of answers from AI, and I use AI, we should be using AI, but use it responsibly, and a lot of times you need to just understand from real people what is it that they're struggling with. So that's what we— what I wanted to highlight in terms of vetting the idea, That is again going through this process, and we have we have a spreadsheet on vetting the idea. All the points I mentioned, I'll include that link to that as well. But also talking to people, researching competitors, and talking to ten people that will that will be super helpful. I was speaking with a professor. Oh my goodness! His name escapes me. He teaches at Berkeley, and he says in one of his courses he asks he. demands of his students to speak with 100 people. So I'm asking to do 10 only. So, so 100 people, that's what he asks his students to do to vet a tech idea. He's talking specifically about tech. Tech is different, uh, maybe more depth is required if you're building the next Uber. For services, for consulting, I think 10, 15 people, it doesn't matter, but you can get a good idea on what the needs what the needs are in the market if you follow that. So that is good on— that is on vetting the idea. So that is really important. A lot— everything we will be talking about going forward is going to be based on you, on this idea, on this thing that's been just burning in your mind that you've been really wanting to do. So I want you to vet it. I want to make sure people there's a need for what you offer. And then, which brings me to my next point, is on showing you— hold on, give me one second. Oh, I thought I had it right here. Oh, I thought I had it, but I'll have it right now. Is on building the offer. So, so, so building the offer basically is that you've done the research, you've, you spoke with your research competitors, you talk to people, you know your skills. Now, how do I translate my skills into a clear service offer? If you're looking for a formula, I don't have a magic formula for you, but I have what, what, what summarizes what I said over the last 20 or so minutes is it's a combination. The offer, your offer, is a combination of the skills that you have, the problem that people have, and then willing wallets. A lot of times people have issues they'd like to, to be resolved, but they're there's just inconveniences. They're not willing to pay for that. So just because you have an idea, just, just because you're solving a problem, it doesn't mean that, that it's a business idea, a valid, viable business idea. You want to make sure that people are willing to pay for it. That's why, again, this, this discussion and this research, uh, these conversations and the research will help you validate that people are willing to pay for this. So, so When we talk about skills and plus problem plus willing wallets, right? So we talked about willing wallets, we talked about problem. I have that spreadsheet for, for you to, to help you, um, focus on, on the problem that you want to solve for your clients. The skills part could, could also be tricky. So I have another spreadsheet for you, and it is Here, I'll put the link to it right now so you have it. It is bbsu.net/skills. And basically, if you look at it here, it's a spreadsheet where you can jot down the hard skills that you have. I mentioned the IT consulting example earlier. It could be financial advisory, it could be HR consulting, it could be management consulting, it could be marketing consulting. And there's so many different niches or subcategories under each one of these. It could be environmental consulting, it could be healthcare consulting, supply chain, especially with tariffs. I had a whole episode on, on opportunities, business opportunities, given the changes, seismic changes with the tariffs that are hitting different countries. And, and again, this is not political, but this is, this is what we are living through. It's a major headline every other week. So if you have specific skill sets, you might have an opportunity to help companies navigate how they manage tariffs or the impact, the impact of tariffs on them. So in this spreadsheet, I want you to document your own skills, hard— what I have, what I call hard skills, things that are technical, things that you have done for a few years maybe, or maybe 10+ years. And put, you know, be objective with the skills. Is it I'm a level 1 or I'm very proficient? I'm like 7 or 8, or maybe I've mastered this. I have the 10,000 hours in IT consulting and cybersecurity and all that good stuff. So if you don't find what you have here, this is just a sample, add your own. And then in addition to hard skills, there are the soft skills. So these are things like obviously communication and presenting, critical thinking, problem solving, just general business acumen. Maybe, maybe your family had a business, and when you were a teenager, you worked in that family business and you dealt with customers. So customer support, is just second nature to you. So jot that down. So again, I have this sample, just a sample for you. But it's not 100% comprehensive. It's not 100%, you know, all-encompassing. But it does cover many of the soft skills that will help you as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. And even if you are a manager, you lead people, A lot of these things are important to have— problem solving, critical thinking, a lot of the people skills, the relationship skills. Those are going to be more needed as we rely more and more on tech and on AI. So go through this list and jot down maybe the top 5 skills you have, hard skills, and the top 5 soft skills that you have. And that is part of the foundation that you need. That's part of what I have listed here as, as that the offer formula. And, and one, one thing here to keep in mind is when you're starting over in this entrepreneurship thing, or even if you're starting over, maybe you had a mid, midlife career change You're not starting from scratch. Every experience you have, every encounter you have, the the people whom you've left a positive impression on—this is these are all part of your resources that you can tap into. So so if you're just starting, if maybe you haven't finished college or you just finished college and you don't have a whole lot of. skills yet, that's okay. And you really want to be a financial advisor, a financial consultant, then work really hard to consume every reputable— every video on YouTube from a reputable source on financial planning, and go on Coursera and take a course and get those certificates and learn and help others and help maybe your cousins or whomever, or someone, uh, people who don't have any experience, and maybe you have a little bit of experience. So you can, even if you're new, um, to a field but you really like it and you see a potential in that field, there's time for you to, uh, to learn skills in there. So, so for those of us who are a bit maybe older, you have experience, you have expertise, you've worked in corporate, you've You've dealt with vendors, you've dealt with people, so those don't assume that, oh my God, I have to build this business from the ground up. Yes, certain things have to be built from the ground up, but in terms of resources, in terms of your network, and in terms of your own skills, you've gone through a lot, even if you've only worked in corporate for 5 years, you've gone through a lot of things. Ups and downs in the economy and, and dealing with people. So, so keep that in mind. And one last thing here, as you're building your offer, avoid niching too soon. So I did mention earlier that I don't want you to sell to the universe, because if you sell to everyone, you're selling to no one. But I don't want you also to, to go so niche that your total addressable market is 10 people. Right? So, so, so there's a balance and you can refine that balance over time, but initially start a bit broader if you want to err on the side of, um, being a little bit broader, and then you can refine later. So, so if you do graphic design, potentially you can do all kinds of graphic design for print, for signs, for billboards, obviously for digital. Even with AI, there's still, I believe there's still a place for the human touch. So maybe initially you can be a generalist, maybe focus on small businesses in a specific sector because you know that sector really well. But from the graphic design services, you can have broader services. Over time, you can just focus on offline, on print maybe, or maybe on digital. Yeah. Again, depending on what I think you're the— where you have the most strength, but don't go too niche. So that is that. Next, we want to talk about— now that we've validated the idea, now we want to talk a little bit about— and we built the offer, now we want to talk about getting your first clients. Now, you've— you, you know that we talked about business planning. I didn't have a slot— slide on business planning. That's important. Um, you know, I can spend 2 hours on each of these, these slides. So my commitment to you at the beginning of this episode was I want, I want to give you something concrete, some specific things that you can use right away to get your business, um, to get that business started, and hopefully your first client the next couple months. So, so with all that preparation, all that preparation work, one thing I don't have a slide on, I think I've covered extensively, is your financial planning, especially if you have commitments, you have a family that you are responsible for fully or partially. I do want you to treat financials very seriously, even if you're the— especially if you're the, the optimist, the the positive thinking person, uh, you want to do proper financial planning. And I do have a live stream, I'll put the link in the description, on building your 6-month financial runway. So this way, uh, you go into this entrepreneurship with a plan. With, with— when we, we, when we have our finances in order, and let's say we have a runway for 3 months or 6 months, it just, we, it really has a different impact. We approach this entrepreneurship with more confidence because we know rent is taken care of, we know family is taken care of. Yes, we cut down our expenses, we cut down on vacation, we cut down on maybe some Personal time, personal hobbies, whatever it is. But I know I don't have to worry about finances for the next couple of months or three months or six months if you're fortunate to be able and that to be in that position. And then you can your entire, your dedicated, your full attention, your full focus on on getting that business off the ground. So so so so that is that's something really important is how to get your finances in order. Now if you happen to be in a position today where, like, I was almost broke. Um, I had a— I had an okay severance when I was laid off, um, but I had a family of my wife and 3 children, and I was, I was the sole breadwinner at the time. Um, it was tough, you know, a couple months into it and no, no revenue. It was, it was really hard. And, and then I, I just— my motivation was I gotta get Food to the table. I gotta pay rent. So that motivated me to work really hard. So you could be in a position today where you are working full-time and you are maybe working a second job and you still want to have your own business. So that's going to put a lot of tax on your free time. And I don't want you to be— again, this is not to discourage you, but if cash is very, very tight And you're having to work two jobs, and you have some family obligations, and and and and and maybe this is not the the optimal time to start a business, and that's okay. Sometimes people just need a permission that you know this is not the time to do it. But you I wanted to work to to work. I wanted to work toward finding and creating a season in your life where you can put. Time into this dream that you want to establish. So, so keep that in mind. Um, you know, as, as you know, I know, I know we didn't spend a lot of time, um, on this before, but I want you to think of, um, here, can you see my screen now? Or is it showing? It's not showing. Oh, um, sorry, one second here. We are now talking about building the offer and then getting your first clients, and that's not showing on my screen for some reason. Here you go. All right, I'm gonna stop the screen and share it again. That will solve it. There you go. All right, so I'll figure out one day. There you go. So getting your first clients, that's probably one of the hardest things that entrepreneurs have. How do I get clients? How do I get my first clients? Your first client, maybe clients, from my own experience, from every entrepreneur I spoke with, I think I don't want to say everyone, mostly most everyone, their first clients come from their network, not from strangers. The vast majority, the vast majority of your scenarios and the clients you'll be getting initially, for the vast majority of entrepreneurs, it's going to be from their network. So That's why if you're thinking about starting a business in 6 months, creating that network, staying in touch with your network is really important now. And if you've already started, then leaning in on that network— you don't have to call everyone and say, hey, I started a business, buy from me. No, that will be— that will not be well received. Your network will start shrinking. No. But there's a process, and the process is that there's a process to let people know about what you're doing, right? So basic web presence, updating your LinkedIn profile, letting people know that that's what you're doing, that's important, that's prerequisite. And then reaching out to people, and I'll walk you through exactly how you do it. But some, I know some might say, hey, I'm still in my, my full-time job. I don't want to announce that I'm starting a business. It could get really awkward at work. So, so that's obviously, that's a different scenario. Maybe you don't want to update your LinkedIn profile. You can update your LinkedIn profile in terms of highlighting the skills that you've acquired over the years that will, that will be relevant to the thing that you're about to announce, maybe, maybe after you leave your current job. But in general, whether you make the announcement now or later, again, depends on your situation. I want you to start doing the outreach to your warm network. So you can, and I have a spreadsheet for that, we'll include the link in, in the description, just, just to make it easy for you. Basically just list people, sit down and, okay, people that you have interacted with recently, ex-colleagues, Ex-vendors, suppliers, customers, people at gym, you know, your ex-roommates, ex-classmates, people you've stayed in touch with, and obviously the one thing to keep in mind is people you've left a positive impression on. That's really important. So if you haven't left a positive impression on a lot of people, we have to— that's a different discussion. Maybe let me know, maybe I'll do a session on that. But assuming you have a network, small or large, of people that you've dealt with, you've worked with, um, they think highly of you, they, they know that you are— you work hard, that you are reliable, you're dependable. If you set your mind on something, you'll do it. That's, that's really important. And I want you to reach out to these people and let them know that, hey, you know, how's it going? I'd love to catch up and let you know what I'm up to. And then on the call, hey, that's what I've started. I'd love to hear your input. Ask them if they have a need for that service or ask them to point you to someone in their network who can. So if you are, let's say, go back to our HR consulting example, you might not have friends who are managers or maybe directors or CEOs, COOs, business owners. But if you know someone who works in engineering or in design, in marketing, or in IT in that company, and they're looking to hire maybe an HR consultant, someone to help them with payroll and some— someone to streamline their performance review process, or maybe someone to make sure that they, they're compliant with the new regulations for the new year, then that person, your friend, could make that introduction to the hiring manager for someone who's looking for a consultant to help in HR, right? So again, come up with the list. Again, I'll include the link to this spreadsheet in the description, but the idea is sit down now that you have your offer, you know your audience, who you want to sell to, maybe mid-sized businesses who don't have an HR manager. And are below 50 people. Maybe that's your target audience, and maybe in the healthcare sector because you've done a lot of work in healthcare. So that's, that's your niche. Not too niche, not too broad, niche enough. And then start in your network, see who works in companies like this, or they know people who work in such companies. And again, reach out to them, catch up with them. Of course, of course, of course, see if you can be helpful to them as well. If reciprocity is really important, so it's not just us asking people for help, leaning on people, also being a resource for other people. And for those of us who haven't been like that, yeah, I mean, I, I wasn't like that. I, you know, I didn't have To ask people for things. You know, I worked in corporate and I was doing okay, and I got the promotions. But at times—not at times—in in general, you want to be a giving person. You want to help others. Whatever you believe in, or you believe in God, you believe in other things. The universe—the universe has a way to. To, to, um, I don't know, to, to really reward us in, in ways, um, that maybe, maybe scientifically we can't put our fingers on it. But if, in my experience, myself and others I've worked with, when you are helping others, when you are sharing your time, when you are sharing from what you know. Sharing, obviously, not just if you're helping a nonprofit and donating, making a contribution, that's one thing of helping, but just from the skills that you have. Maybe teach a youth class, maybe help a local nonprofit, maybe in your industry volunteer for your industry association, uh, find somewhere where you get to meet people, right? So just giving from what we have, giving, giving from the resources that we have, or the skills that we have, or the time that we have to those who are in need of what we have, that do it because it's good. It makes us better people. A side product, a byproduct of that, a side effect of that is that somehow the universe find ways for us to, to receive from that same type of help that we, we've, we've offered others. And again, this is not philosophical or religious or anything, just, just my experience, uh, is that you help someone and later you're stuck in something and you get help, um, in a similar fashion, right? Uh, so, so, so, so the idea here is that what I'm saying is that if, if that's your That's your nature. You've been out there helping others, even with small things. When you reach out to people, they'll remember that and they'll go out of their way. Most people, most people will go out of you, of the, out of their way. Most people will help. Some few will get out of their way to help. And, and, and I think on our part, just like so many people helped us, If we are proactive about it, we are nurturing these relationships with others over over time. These relationships, you know, we're planting these seeds. Those trees that will grow out of those seeds will help us, will help others. So so so so I I I have this Ask Feras link on on LinkedIn on my website. Anyone can just go in and set up. A twenty twenty minute chat with me, and I have a couple of slots every week open to help others. I don't ask. I don't pitch anything. I don't ask for any compensation, but it's my way of paying it forward for the so many people to the so many people who have helped me along my way. So again, you might say, Ferris, okay now you have the resources. Da da da da. You've sold the company. You can do that. Yes, I have. More time now. But even when it was really, really, really busy, I always made sure I was helping in one way or another, either mentoring someone in my industry, volunteering. I remember volunteering for the Digital Analytics Association, or helping the local community or a local nonprofit, or doing something where I'm helping someone else. And that, again, it just I think the giver is much more rewarded than the receiver in so many different ways, because it's not just about having more time, having more vacation, having more money. These are important. I do take vacation. I do spend time with the family. We travel. But taking some time from our busy schedule, from our personal time, and sharing that with others is the best thing that we can do, the best gift that we can give others. So back to finding your first client, this is, I think, really, really foundational in the sense that business is about relationships. People buy from people. So I'm maybe overemphasizing the importance of reaching out to your network, and if you don't have a large network, to invest in building a network and helping others, that is going to help you become a very successful entrepreneur because the more people out there who are evangelizing, who are sharing your success and connecting you with others, the more likelihood that you will get leads and get business and get that trust. That trust flows from you to your friends, from your friends to you when they make an introduction. If I make an introduction, say Sally is a great financial advisor, do I say this is one of my friends? I mean, I'm passing on their— my friend's trust in me is now passed, you know, I pass it to my introduction of Sally to my friend. So it's really important to grow that network, to reach out to the network and start with just simple outreach, just simple emails, simple maybe text messages, that's okay. People are busy. Not everybody is going to respond to you. So if they're a close friend, or maybe, you know, they're from a previous— an ex-colleague, maybe send them one time and maybe a quick reminder and just say— that's what I always say— if this is not a good time to connect for what— for whatever reason, that's okay, we'll catch up later. So, so go into this with this mindset of help reaching out, tapping into your network. And then also with, uh, there you go, with, with being willing to help and reciprocate. And I know you're busy, and I know you're starting, maybe you may be working full-time and, and starting a business at the same time, but you have to find time to help others, um, and reciprocate what you're asking others to do. You have to also model that yourself. The next point here, uh, in terms of, in terms of finding your first few clients, and we'll be wrapping up here shortly, I have one more area I want to cover, and that is with— if I can get to my spreadsheet— is to position, position yourself as, as, as credible even if you're new. And this, this ties into what I said earlier about you're not starting from scratch. You've built a reputation, you have you have expertise, experience. So you're new to this new business, of course, but you're reliable. You've worked with customers before. Maybe you managed a team before. You have certificate, you've done, you have, you're certified in a specific technology or in a specific service. So you want to make sure these, I would, I call them in digital marketing, we call them conversion elements, like anything that will add to your credibility, anything that clients you've worked with, logos, of course, case studies, success stories, certifications, mentions, awards, all of that, make sure it's visible on your website if you have a website, or obviously if you're just leveraging social media like LinkedIn, Make sure those are also there. People do look at these things before they hire you, and then there are different models in terms of helping your clients. I had a session, I think a month ago or so, on on different models like do it yourself, offering your services at DIY, or do it with you, done done do it with you or done for you, right? Dfy or dwy. So, so I think from, from what I've seen, all of these models could work if you're really great at packaging things and having it ready for people to buy from you and then do everything on their own. That's great. But I think if you go in and this do-it-with-you model is easier to start, that do-it-yourself model requires a lot of again, you producing digital products or content or processes or workflows, and that might be, um, this might be just not your cup of tea initially, and you haven't figured out all your processes and all your systems and all the content that, that people will need to utilize your service. So, so go in there, um, if you produce, for example, if you do you're a marketing strategist or you're a management consultant, you know, go in and before you take on maybe a huge strategy, marketing strategy project, make it more where it's more— make the proposal and the offer more where you come in, maybe do an assessment, do an audit of what the company is doing, and then work with their internal people and be there with them to implement some of that work. You're not just giving a strategy and you're moving on. I mean, if that's your specialty, that's fine, but for people who are not strategists, as that's not their specialization, do some of that. I would come in and do some of that work, offer hands-on experience, hands-on deliverables, tangible deliverables, where you can go and work with the clients that way. So again, Some of us might have experience in packaging things and creating processes and workflows and digital products and things that people can buy and download and do their own, you know, do their own work as in a DIY package. If that's your thing, do it, but I think that do-it-with-you model is easier from a sales perspective. We do have some comments. Let me go— what's— so someone is asking, what is my net worth? That's an interesting question, Max. Not sure why you're asking. That's not relevant to the topic today, but if you have a question about how to start a business, In the next couple of months and how to get an idea, how to translate your how to make that idea turn into a viable business. I'm here for you. So moving on, a couple more things and then we wrap wrap up today's session. I mean, in terms of the the back office, it's really important and and I I don't want you to. Do your own accounting and construct your own contracts. That, that typically doesn't yield to good results. So I don't want to spend a lot of time on, on, on the back office, but some, some business basics are important. You want to set up your company. You don't have to set up your LLC or your S corp day one. You can do a lot of that business planning, that vetting initially on your own while you have a full-time job before you start an LLC. You can even sell before you have your LLC, you know, keep track of all your business expenses and all the revenue you get in. That's— I'm not saying don't do an LLC, but that's not— these are easy things to do. You can hire someone to do it for you. There are portals that help you set up your LLC. That's easy. Um, you can get sample contracts, you can send manual invoices. So, so I don't want you to focus a lot of time on setting up systems. You want to set up QuickBooks properly, you want to buy a CRM and set up properly, you want to hire a lawyer and, and get all your contract templates ready. You need all of that later. For now, you can start sort of one step at a time. I have, from a CRM perspective, I have a DIY CRM that you can download. I'll include the link here. Let me put the link on the screen. Uh, right here, CRM right here. So it's bbsu.net/crm. Um, you can track your leads and all the sales activities in that spreadsheet. It should be sufficient till maybe when you have 50, 100 qualified leads, then you can look into having your own CRM. But, but the idea here is not Not to— my point here is that you need to set up some business basics, but don't spend a lot of time perfecting all this backend office and the backend work before you have clients. These things will— you'll need to do them, but one thing at a time. First, get that clients, and, and do invest in, in some basic tools. You need a task management tool, a project management tool, like use Asana or Notion, whatever, whatever works for you. Um, even if it's gonna cost you, you know, $29 a month for a tool here, another $20 for a tool there, these things will save you a lot of time. Because the number one thing, the number one thing where you spend most of your energy initially is in marketing and sales, meaning being out there either doing outreach— that takes time— doing cold outreach— that's another, another setup altogether— going to events, going to conferences. Um, then following up on all this outreach, all that takes time. And that's what I want you to spend most of it. If you're spending 40, 50 hours a week just on that, you will get that first client within a couple of months. If you're spending 2 hours a day, an hour a day on sales and marketing, it's just not going to happen. You're not going to get your first client in a couple months. So, so I want to set up some basic processes, some basic systems, and then upgrade, enhance those systems as the business grows. Don't go cheap on accounting. Don't go cheap on attorneys. And I have a full playlist on how to work with lawyers, how to work with accountants, but you don't need massive elaborate systems initially. And then last but not least, I do want to talk about common fears and challenges. I alluded to these early on, but These are not going to go away. Fears will always be there. Even I was speaking with the founder earlier this week. They're well into 6 digits. They're doing well. They have nice recurring contracts, nice recurring revenue stream, but part of the things that they're dealing with, this fear of success. So I grow to 7 figures, I grow to $1.5 or $2 million in sales, and I have more margins, I'm taking more home, but I have to hire people. I have to now potentially go after larger clients. Can I deal and handle and make these larger clients happy? So, so Fear of success is a real thing. It could be the fear, the financial burden. As I said earlier, it could be the fear of the reputation. What if I fail? What will my family and friends and others say about me? Ex-colleagues, right? So these fears are real. They're legitimate. I think everything we cover today, I believe everything we cover today will help you overcome those fears. Taking tiny steps, even if you're shaking, even if you're not sure what to do or how you're doing things, but taking those steps, building that momentum, will give you more courage, will give you a bit, a bit of energy when you're interacting with people. Yes, you might fail, you might have to deal with the rejections and nobody's buying. That's That's totally normal. That's totally part of the process. Following the steps here that we covered will help you get back on your feet and then go keep going at it again. So, so, um, the fears are there. The fears are real. Um, we, depending on our personality type, we deal with these fears differently, and some fears might be more prominent in our lives than others depending again on our personality types. And I have a video coming up on that. So subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss out on that video. Should be releasing that one soon. And then, you know, the idea of building that confidence, it goes back to the martial arts principles that I talk about all the time, that discipline of showing up, of stepping on the mat even when you're tired, even when Yeah, the shoulder is, is aching today, you know, but I'm going to go. I'm going to take it a bit easier, easy today because shoulder is hurting, but I'm stepping on the mat. I'm taking that step. I am that next step. I am showing up. I am talking to people. I am taking notes. I'm watching this course on, on how to go from zero to revenue, the Entrepreneurship Essentials. I'm filling out these spreadsheets, these worksheets on how to identify my skills, how to package my offer, how to price. So, so these principles of the, the discipline, um, showing up, um, the, the reps, you know, making those reps rain or shine, showing up rain or shine, talking to people, rejection or not, trying different pricing approaches, you know, getting back and centering myself after a big rejection. I worked on a proposal over the weekend and I sent it and they ghosted me for 2 weeks and then they said, no, we went with this other vendor and this other vendor doesn't know what they're talking about. Yes, you might have all of that happen, but you learn from it and you get back to your center and say, okay, I'm going to improve my pitch, I'm going to improve my proposal template, I'm going to improve my time to respond to these leads, needs, and then you will get to your destination. So, so don't let these fears, um, take over. You can overcome them. You can, by practice, by getting the right mindset, getting, you know, have that bias toward action and, and doing things one step at a time, one tiny shaky step at a time, you'll build that confidence. We'll get, we'll get that customer, that first client, second client, you make them happy, you bend over, bend backward, bend over backward to make these clients, the first clients, happy. They'll tell their tribe, they'll tell their people, and then you get leads from, from that great work you've done for that client. So, so this is the framework, and this is— these are the specific steps you can take to turn and pivot the skills you have and turn that idea into a viable, sustainable business, profitable business. So if you have a question, leave it in a comment on whichever platform you're on, or you can direct message me on LinkedIn or email me at feras@startupwithferas.com. And let me put this on the screen so you have it as well. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, as I said, and you can, you can go on YouTube at Startup with Feras and Um, subscribe to that channel. I publish a lot of Shorts, um, every day, and then, and then a video every few weeks. And then I have these live streams every other Thursday at 1 PM Pacific, 4 PM Eastern. You can join live and ask your question and get it answered here, or just leave me a question and I'll answer it afterward. And I want to hear from you. And if you're looking for specific tips on a weekly basis and strategies, you can, you can also Join my weekly newsletter, and you can here let me put the the link to it. You can go to startupwithfairs.com and then join the Black Belt Startup newsletter. It's weekly every Saturday where I share strategies and tips, and I answer questions that I get from the community. So that is it for today. See you next time.